The liberators of the slaves were never expecting what they had come across. They were completely shocked by the devastation that had been going on. Since there were so many illnesses going on in the camps, American soldiers were not always allowed inside. Even soldiers who had experienced death on the battlefield had no idea how to prepare themselves for what they saw. They knew that what they were going to see, but it was nothing to actually seeing it in person and in reality. Sergeant William who was one of the American liberators saw “all forms of dismemberment of the human body... incinerators choked with human bones, dissected heads and bodies.” (Yeatts 21). United States troops were horrified to find human remains in the crematoria ovens in Buchenwald. They also witnessed displays of human body parts placed on shelves by the door of the barracks so that the prisoners would see them as they went in and out of the building. It even made soldiers like Henry Allen not be able to live a normal life because of his “what ifs”. He couldn’t help but imagine that it could have been him in there, or even his relatives.
http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/viewer/wlc/film.php?RefId=DFE0312A
Link to video^^^^^^^
Liberators’ Struggles
The liberators of the slaves were never expecting what they had come across. They were completely shocked by the devastation that had been going on. Since there were so many illnesses going on in the camps, American soldiers were not always allowed inside. Even soldiers who had experienced death on the battlefield had no idea how to prepare themselves for what they saw. They knew that what they were going to see, but it was nothing to actually seeing it in person and in reality. Sergeant William who was one of the American liberators saw “all forms of dismemberment of the human body... incinerators choked with human bones, dissected heads and bodies.” (Yeatts 21). United States troops were horrified to find human remains in the crematoria ovens in Buchenwald. They also witnessed displays of human body parts placed on shelves by the door of the barracks so that the prisoners would see them as they went in and out of the building. It even made soldiers like Henry Allen not be able to live a normal life because of his “what ifs”. He couldn’t help but imagine that it could have been him in there, or even his relatives.
http://www.ushmm.org/lcmedia/viewer/wlc/film.php?RefId=DFE0312A